2000 Ford F-150 Reg Cab Flareside 120 on 2040-cars

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Ford looks to space robots to improve car-to-car communications [w/video]

Ford has partnered with St. Petersburg Polytechnic University for three years to research various kinds of connected vehicle communications. The university tie-up is part of its study of space robots, NASA systems created to enable space-to-Earth communication, and the university's own development of systems that enable communication between the International Space State and Earth.
The objective is for Ford to engineer layers of robust networks and redundancy systems that will allow your car to speak to other cars, to emergency vehicles, to infrastructure like traffic lights and buildings, and to the cloud. Benefits would come in just about every area of transit, from avoiding accidents, to getting medical workers to an accident more quickly, to improving the flow of traffic during rush hour.
Check out the press release below for details on what Ford wants to learn from the JUSTIN Humanoid and NASA Robonaut R2, and a video of technical leader Oleg Gusikhin discussing his interest in the project.

Transit Courier completes Ford's new commercial van line, will we get it?

This week Ford rolled out the 2014 Transit Courier, the fourth addition to its Transit range. Ford says its the first time for the nameplate in the compact van segment.
"Ford has now completely transformed its commercial vehicle line-up, with four all-new, class-leading Transits for European customers," said Barb Samardzich, vice president of product development for Ford Europe. "With the all-new Transit range, we expect sales to grow to 400,000 units per year by 2016, well over 50 percent more than we sell today."
When the Courier goes on sale in the Spring of 2014, it will offer more than 1,400 pounds of payload capacity, multiple mounting points for racks or other framework and a rear cargo area that can carry items 5.3 feet-long. An optional folding passenger seat boosts the cargo length to 8.5 feet.

Subprime financing on the rise in new car sales, leasing too

We all remember the financial crisis that began several years back. At its core was a splurge of subprime lending for housing loans. The housing bubble burst, triggering a collapse of the mortgage-backed securities market. Apparently, those types of loans still exist in the automotive industry, and the market share for these types of "nonprime, subprime, and deep subprime," loans has grown 13.6 percent compared to the third quarter a year ago.
According to an Automotive News report, high-risk lending expanded to 24.8 percent of total loans in Q3, up from 21.9 percent for this time last year. As this level increased, average credit scores of borrowers dropped to 755, down from 763 a year ago. In that time, the average financing amount increased $90 per vehicle, to $25,963.
At 818, Volvo maintains the highest per-owner credit score, while Mitsubishi has the lowest, at 694. The highest rate of borrowers was at Toyota, with 14 percent of the market, followed by Ford with 13.1 percent and Chevrolet at 11.1.